If they've got a dozen kids in the whole school who make guns their desktops every year and eventually one shoots anyone anywhere they'll be asked "Why didn't you DO something???" so a warning, yes, then suspension. Of course, the school is prohibited from telling their side and we have to take the word of the student and the parent on what went down.

SilentStrider:While the kid should have been smart enough to know better, this is asinine.

This. I am hardly part of the pro-gun faction here on Fark, but the school's action is just silly. If they don't like his background, fine, it's a school-issued computer so he should change it if they ask. But the school never asked or even warned the kid he might be violating any rules.

HMS_Blinkin:SilentStrider: While the kid should have been smart enough to know better, this is asinine.

This. I am hardly part of the pro-gun faction here on Fark, but the school's action is just silly. If they don't like his background, fine, it's a school-issued computer so he should change it if they ask. But the school never asked or even warned the kid he might be violating any rules.

Just another case of power-tripping school admins.

I think in this case high capacity semi-automatic repeating bears are in order

This kid is a stone cold killer in the making. Guaranteed racists homophobe. First its a picture, then it's a bb gun, then a pellet rifle, and BOOM, raped once by a catholic priest and he's in the bell tower shooting minorities.

I hate these people. I had some wonderful teachers in high school, but some of the administrators at school were simply among the dumbest people I've interacted with before or since (and I've been out of school for a while). Seriously, no common sense, no common decency, and a total lack of contact with reality....How does this happen?

Yes, we have to keep kids from killing each other. But this kind of thing is completely counter-productive. So stupid.

I hate these people. I had some wonderful teachers in high school, but some of the administrators at school were simply among the dumbest people I've interacted with before or since (and I've been out of school for a while). Seriously, no common sense, no common decency, and a total lack of contact with reality....How does this happen?

You know the saying: Those who do, do. Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach go into educational administration.

my wtf level just spiked way way past 9000. its damn photo of a gun laying on a flag! All that should have happened is the student be told to remove the picture and at worse made to use a my little pony desktop.

I have relatives who are teachers (or, rather, were teachers, they have retired)

They have admitted that one of the most frustrating parts of their job was dealing with school boards and other officials that were essentially two-bit politicians that had no interest in actually educating kids, but simply hanging on to jobs by installing irrational fears in the parent's minds then spouting the magic words such as "zero tolerance" or "standardized testing" that will supposedly fix the problem.

Really, the cure to this stupidity is to get involved in your school board elections and make sure anyone of them that use the above magic words as a solution gets roundly criticized and none of your votes.

The education of our children is far too important to leave to a bunch of self-centered con men.

Making guns a taboo subject will backfire. If you tell children (30 and under) that they aren't allowed to even look at a picture of something, all you are doing is guaranteeing that they will seek it out as much as possible.

This is the same sort of adminstrator that puts software on school-issued computers, suspend kids that try to disable it, reveal it on their own, try to delete and destroy any incriminating information, blame the tech support, then settle with NDAs.

OtherLittleGuySo, they can't lock down the desktop image?This is the same sort of adminstrator that puts software on school-issued computers, suspend kids that try to disable it, reveal it on their own, try to delete and destroy any incriminating information, blame the tech support, then settle with NDAs.

I like it. Give the student an incentive to learn to hack that would not have even bothered before.